MURRIETA: Man convicted in 1996 slaying of 13-year-old girl

Crispin Garcia faces 25 years to life in prison

In the end, jurors said it was the words of defendant Crispin
Solorio Garcia, who did not testify during his weeklong trial, that
convinced them he planned and then carried out the murder of a
13-year-old Murrieta girl.

Garcia, 31, was found guilty Tuesday of the first-degree murder
of Sophia Briseno, whose body, riddled with 64 stab wounds, was
found in a field south of Ivy Street in Murrieta several days after
she was killed in February 1996.

By then, Garcia and another man, Francisco Gonzalez Ochoa, now
34, whom authorities believe also took part in the slaying, had
fled to Mexico.

The nine-woman, three-man jury deliberated for a full day before
reaching a verdict late Tuesday afternoon.

As the clerk in Riverside Superior Court Judge John D. Molloy's
courtroom read the guilty verdict, Garcia stared straight ahead
listening to a Spanish translation through headphones, as he had
throughout the trial.

"It was his own confessions that he made in both Mexico and here
in the United States that convinced us," said jury foreman Ike
Bootsma of Eastvale.

Garcia was found in a Mexican jail in 2007 on an unrelated
charge and was extradited to the United States to stand trial for
Sophia's death.

Ochoa, who is wanted in connection with the slaying, is believed
to be in Mexico.

Both the FBI agent who helped apprehend Garcia in Mexico in 2007
and the Murrieta police detective who interviewed him for four
hours in 2008 testified that Garcia admitted he had killed the
middle school student in Murrieta by stabbing her repeatedly with a
screwdriver.

Prosecutors said Garcia, then 17, killed the girl to show he was
tough in hopes of becoming part of a Murrieta gang. They also said
he wanted to keep Sophia from telling his high-school-aged
girlfriend about the sexual relationship he was having with the
younger girl.

Garcia's public defenders argued that he was under the influence
of alcohol and drugs at the time of the slaying and that an
argument between the couple led to the killing. The defense did not
call any witnesses. Garcia's lawyers had argued for a lesser
conviction of voluntary manslaughter.

The jury saw it differently.

"We knew he was involved and planned it ahead of time," Bootsma
said. "We didn't really buy the substance abuse."

Several members of the Briseno family attended the trial each
day. However, by the time the verdict was announced late in the
afternoon, most had left. Sophia's younger sister Lorena, who was
11 when the crime occurred, works near the Riverside courthouse and
was able to hear the verdict.

"We never really thought this day would come," Lorena said,
adding that justice had finally come for Sophia "at least as much
as can be expected. After all this time, it's more of a
relief."

In addition to the murder conviction, jurors found that Garcia
had used a screwdriver to commit the slaying.